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Front Burner Transcript for February 7, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

[Music: Theme]

JONATHAN MONTPETIT: Hi, I'm Jonathan Montpetit, in for Jayme Poisson. So, the Super Bowl is on Sunday. And today, we're talking about the absolute explosion of sports betting with Danny Funt, contributor to The Washington Post and author of the new book called, "Everybody Loses." And Danny, I got to be honest, I had no idea of some of the stuff you can bet on. So, like obviously, you can bet on who's going to win the Super Bowl, Kansas City Chiefs or the Philadelphia Eagles, with the Chiefs right now favoured to three peat. What are some of the other, other things you can, you can bet on?

DANNY FUNT: You can bet on basically every aspect of the game, and also stuff beyond the game. Like, how long is John Bettis's rendition of The Star Spangled Banner going to last? Will it be over or under two minutes? What colour Gatorade will be dumped on the winning head coach? What song Kendrick Lamar will open the halftime show with? You wouldn't believe how obscure some of this stuff gets. It's basically every possible thing you're watching on TV, they want to turn into a betting opportunity.

JM: All right, Danny. Let's, let's figure out how we got here. You know, a recent poll came out showing that nearly half of people watching the big game in Ontario will also be betting on an outcome. Paint a picture for us if you can. Like, how does the NFL's biggest night illustrate just how much sports betting has grown over the last few years?

DANNY FUNT: You know, I used to find it interesting when I was talking to people like this to say this is going to be the most money ever wagered legally on a Super Bowl in history. And now, it's sort of a truism that every Super Bowl is going to be the most money ever bet on a Super Bowl just because this keeps growing and growing year after year. Since in the US, 2018 and in Canada, 2021. So, this year, the gambling trade group, the American Gaming Association estimates that $1.4 billion will be wagered legally on the Super Bowl in the U.S. The illegal betting, you know, is a whole other story. You could definitely tack on a couple more billion to that. But yeah, it's, it's so extraordinary how quickly things have changed. This game is going to be played in New Orleans where the Super Bowl was in 2013. So, just barely a decade ago, the NFL was so adamantly anti-gambling that it prohibited any of its employees from even stepping foot into a casino in Louisiana if they were there for the Super Bowl. Now, the are--, the stadium where the game is played has been rebranded Caesars Superdome, literally the name of a gambling company. So, that just shows you how night and day, the Super Bowl is and really the entire sports landscape ever since this explosion of illegal betting.

JM: And so, that, that explosion happens after this Supreme Court decision in, in 2018.

SOUNDCLIP

REPORTER: The High Court ruled 6 to 3 that states could not be forced to regulate sports betting at the same time they were barred from legalizing it. Nevada was the only state that could offer a full slate of sports wagering options under the 1992 federal ban. [Inaudible].

JM: How quickly did the industry build out following that decision?

DANNY FUNT: A matter of weeks. But really behind the scenes, they had been laying the groundwork for years to be prepared. If that decision went in their favor, they could burst out through the floodgates as quickly as possible just because there was so much enthusiasm and also, so much unknown that potentially, you could take advantage of if you're trying to influence how laws are going to be written. So, immediately, New Jersey, which brought that case, started taking bets at first at casinos and racetracks and then, quickly online as well. Several other states had passed laws that said if the Supreme Court rules this way is, "We'll immediately legalize it." So, Delaware, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, quickly behind New Jersey, then a whole host of other states. There's this ripple effect that happens when a state or a province sees its neighbor has legalized betting. They see all the money that they're bringing in through taxes and say, "Gee, we're really missing out if we don't get on board as well." So, there's still a few big states, California and Texas, most notably, that have yet to legalize. But there's other ways you can effectively bet on sports without doing it in these traditional legal avenues. So basically, wherever you are in the U.S. or Canada, you can risk money on football and a lot of other sports in one way or another.

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JM: For those of us who are not bettors, could you kind of just explain how it works? What kinds of bets are being played? It's not just the outcome of the game.

DANNY FUNT: Not at all. You know, traditionally, for decades, that was the lion's share of revenue, was betting simply who's going to win the game or who's going to cover the spread, which is a certain number of points that bookmakers spot the underdog to make the matchup seem even. But now, there's just this explosion of games within the game to carve up sports in every possible way you could think of to create limitless betting opportunities. So, in the Super Bowl, for example, some sportsbooks offer about 10,000 different things you can bet on. The Super Bowl used to be exceptional, and being this hub for obsessive gambling. And now, that's really true, 24/7/365.

JM: I hear my gambling friends or my friends who gamble, they talk about parlays. Where does that fit in to all that action?

DANNY FUNT: It's a huge part of the business. More than half of revenue now for these biggest operators like FanDuel and DraftKings comes from parlays. Essentially what a parlay is, you stack multiple bets together for the chance at winning much more money than if you bet on a single outcome or if you bet on all of them individually.

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[Clip from Uncut Gems]

CHARACTER 1: I want to make a six-way parlay. Celtics-Sixers game, what's the line now?

CHARACTER 2: Still plus one.

CHARACTER 1: Plus one, OK. So, I want the Celtics to cover. I want the Celtics halftime. I want Garnett points and rebounds, Garnett blocked shots, Celtics opening tip. You take lightning bets?

DANNY FUNT: The catch is that each component of your parlay has to hit. So, if you do a six leg parlay on six different facets of the game or multiple games, but sticking with the Super Bowl, six different things within the Super Bowl matchup, if one of them misses, the bet misses. But you can understand why for a lot of people, if I bet a parlay, let's say $10 to win $100, that's a lot more exciting than betting $10 to win $19 if you just bet on one thing. Now, the catch, of course, if it's a lot more exciting, there's always another side of that coin. Sportsbooks profit a lot more from parlay betting. So, they've created this very exciting lottery-like game with parlays, but their revenue percentage is much, much higher through parlays than through traditional types of betting, like who's going to win or lose.

[Music playing]

JM: I'm curious about the growth of sports gambling and how it's kind of gone hand-in-hand with, with the growth of smartphones. Like, it strikes me that this is a compounding effect when we are already so addicted to our phones. And then, these betting apps put basically like an extra rush of dopamine and right at our fingertips. How did technology contribute to this dramatic change that we've seen over the last several years?

DANNY FUNT: Yeah, that connection you just pointed out really can't be understated. Why the business was able to explode to the point it has, where in the U.S., we're approaching half $1 trillion wagered legally since that Supreme Court decision. A huge amount of that is done on the Internet and a lot of that obviously done on smartphones. So, more than 90 per cent of money in the U.S. is bet online. You can imagine, you know, if it's hard enough to look away from your phone when you're watching a game. Now, you have this ultra-addictive product that's so integrated on your phone, it's so seamless in the ways that you can deposit money with one tap or one swipe and bet with just a couple more taps. It's as user friendly as possible. There's also now a lot of ways to bet on things during games. So, it used to be that you'd place your bet and then, you'd bite your fingernails while you're watching the game. Now, they want you to bet and bet and bet throughout the game; that's a huge growth area within the gambling business, especially when we think about young people, which are in many ways the target demographic: Men 18 to 34. So many young people have a hard time putting down their phones. And you can imagine why for them, gambling is really irresistible nowadays.

JM: Like you've been mentioning, these sportsbook apps are big business. Just looking at PENN Entertainment, for example. This company, you know, started with racetracks, expanded to casinos, bought and sold Barstool Sports and now, runs ESPN Bet and Canadian sports betting firm The Score. And that's like just one example. Can you describe what the integration looks like between sportsbooks and the wider entertainment industry?

DANNY FUNT: It's been a huge part of why this has exploded so quickly, and I think why gambling has been so normalized recently. You know, it's not ancient history when sports media wouldn't touch gambling. It was taboo to even reference the odds during a broadcast. You know, Al Michaels, the football announcer, famously had ways of sort of winking at, "Oh, you know, that last-second field goal is going to cost someone.".

SOUNDCLIP

AL MICHAELS: And that's gonna end the game. And you know why I'm laughing, don't you?

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: Yeah.

AL MICHAELS: Of course you do.

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: There are some people happy, some not so happy.

[cross-talk]

AL MICHAELS: Right, and there are some going, I can't believe what just happened...

CRIS COLLINSWORTH: To me.

AL MICHAELS: To me, or for me. We hear it, folks.

DANNY FUNT: But you, you are totally forbidden from referencing gambling because the leagues that partnered with these media organizations really didn't want their fans gambling and didn't want to promote gambling. So, if you've got deals with leagues, you didn't want to offend those relationships. But even beyond that, it was just generally something that was done under the table through black market bookmakers, not something that was how the mainstream consume sports. Now, we would have a much easier time listing the sports or outlets that don't partner with gambling operators versus those that do. It's become such a huge part of how these companies make money, especially considering that a lot of them are really struggling, you know? Media in general is facing tough times. Sports media in particular has seen huge layoffs in recent years. So, you could imagine it's hard to sort of stick to some sort of moral principle of, "We're not going to get in bed with gambling operators," or "We're not going to encourage our audience to take up gambling." It's hard to have that kind of backbone when you're desperately trying to stay afloat. So, billions and billions of dollars have flooded media. And as a result, not only is it impossible to escape gambling ads when you're watching a game, but if you're listening to your favorite podcast, reading your favourite magazine, listening to your favorite radio program, you're going to be inundated with these ads.

JM: Right. And there's like at the same time, there's this non-mainstream media marketing blitz. I'm thinking in particular of the company stake, which Drake has promoted on his Instagram account with this kind of weird sort of motivational video that links his wealth to never giving up on gambling.

SOUNDCLIP

DRAKE: I rarely celebrate anything. Just for anyone watching this that's wondering how this happened, is being so unsure how you're getting it done that you just, you just kind of keep going in the hopes of figuring out the formula.

JM: What's significant about the, the demographic that's being targeted here?

DANNY FUNT: You know, for a while, I was reluctant to compare what's happening with sports betting to what happened in the last century with tobacco and the way that that industry preyed on people and used exploitative marketing. And I think that if you were to make that argument, the strongest example is those sorts of deals with celebrities, with TV shows, with media organizations. If you look at TV in the 1940s and 50s, so many programs were brought to you by cigarette companies and the effect was it seemed normal, it seemed harmless. It seemed like something that young people could do without much risk. We know that the damage that that caused, and it's hard not to see that parallel with sports betting where you've got LeBron James promoting DraftKings.

SOUNDCLIP

LEBRON JAMES: Loving this live betting on DraftKings.

KEVIN HART: So many options during the game. It feels like I'm calling the plays.

DANNY FUNT: You've got A-list actors like Kevin Hart and Jamie Foxx promoting other companies.

SOUNDCLIP

JAMIE FOXX: At Bet MGM, everyone gets a welcome offer. So, whether you're courtside, trying to hit the over, or up here trying to hit the under.

DANNY FUNT: Drake so enthusiastically, I'd say conspicuously, enthusiastically promoting steak.

SOUNDCLIP

DRAKE: All we need is 17 here. Nice and easy. 17.

VOICE 1: Oh my God.

DRAKE: Wait. 539. No way.

DANNY FUNT: So, the way that all of these influential people are trying to make this seem normal, harmless and wholesome, I do, I do think has a dramatic cultural impact. And when regulators and lawmakers look at what could be done to rein this in, I think that sort of advertising will definitely be in their crosshairs in the near future.

JM: You've mentioned how the big leagues have changed their tune about sports betting. But, you know, at the same time, players have been suspended, kicked out of leagues, even criminally prosecuted in some cases for, for betting illegally. I'm thinking of Miami Heat point guard Terry Rozier.

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REPORTER 2: Suspicious gambling activity surrounding guard Terry Rozier in a game nearly two years ago is now being investigated by federal prosecutors as a part of...

JM: Former Raptors player Jontay Porter. He was banned for life.

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REPORTER 3: A league investigation revealed Porter tipped off bettors about confidential information and limited his play for betting purposes. The NBA also says Porter made thousands of dollars betting on at least 13 NBA games, including a bet...

JM: How can these leagues punish players for gambling when they themselves are so invested, like literally invested in the gambling industry?

DANNY FUNT: Yeah, you know, to some extent, I don't think it's quite as hypocritical as it can seem. You know, they might have deals with beer companies, but you wouldn't want players, you know, playing inebriated. So, at the same time, so often when players like the ones you mentioned or Calvin Ridley in the NFL, a star up and coming receiver who was suspended for a year when he was caught gambling.

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REPORTER 4: League reports he gambled on games over a five day stretch last November. At the time, Ridley was on the non-football injury list dealing with mental health issues. So, he wasn't playing. The NFL...

DANNY FUNT: So often when they're explaining what was going through their heads to make what seems like such a dumb and shortsighted decision, they say, "Well, I saw ads constantly in our games. I saw ads in our stadiums. I saw the ways that our league is promoting this to our fans. And it just didn't seem like such a big deal if I, if I bet myself. So, some of that confusion is inevitable when you've got the leagues being the biggest backers for gambling. It's also interesting that the commissioners of the leagues argued that not only was legalization not a threat to corrupt their sports, but they actually argued that it would make the sport safer from corruption because by bringing it above board, you could monitor the gambling more easily than if it's happening through illegal operators. To some extent, that's valid. To some extent, I think it's quite fishy to say let's create this massive temptation for our players, but it'll be easier to catch them because of it. At the same time, there's still plenty of illegal betting happening. So, you've got people who hear about betting through all these ads, but then they do it nefariously through illegal channels. So, the leagues have created this enormous headache, to put it mildly, for themselves.

[Music playing]

JM: I want to talk a bit about how betting has altered the behaviour of fans. NBA players from Clippers veteran P.J. Tucker.

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P.J. TUCKER: It's getting outrageous. It's getting kind of crazy. And even in the arenas, you're hearing things, the other guys about their bets. It's unreal. So, it's something...

JM: To Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton have talked about the increase in fans sitting courtside at games, yelling at players on the court or, or sending them DMs about how they've cost the money.

SOUNDCLIP

TYRESE HALIBURTON: I mean, that's what I mean, if I were to look at my mentions right now, I'm sure the majority of them are about me looking at some of these parlay. I mean, LeBron Porter likely, you know, if I have a good game, it's just like you're supposed to have your bad games. Like, why talk about parlay? It's like, I'm sorry.

VOICE 2: Wait, you don't remember...?

JM: And you've reported on hecklers on the golf course at the U.S. Open, of all places. How has sports betting changed how we, how we, the spectators, watch sports?

DANNY FUNT: Yeah, I found that so striking. I was at Pinehurst this past year for the U.S. Open golf tournament. I was following the leader and eventual champion Bryson DeChambeau. And you'd think Pinehurst, this iconic golf course, the U.S. Open, one of the most iconic events in the sport, is going to be, you know, the height of decorum and discretion among the fans. And yet, Bryson is about to tee off and someone yells, "Hey, Bryson, I bet on you to score over a certain number today. Basically, "I bet on you to fail." They're trying to get in his head, trying to screw him up. Some people argue that, as I said earlier, this is really always been happening. We've just legalized it to install consumer protections, to generate tax revenue from it. But we're not actually growing the amount of gambling that's happening. I don't think it betrays my neutrality as a reporter to say I think that's non-sense. Just because of the examples you gave. The players say, "This is so stark. Sure, I used to occasionally hear about fans betting on me." Now, it's all I hear about. Not only while I'm playing and I hear hecklers in the stands. When I go back to the team hotel, there have been instances of disgruntled gamblers, stalking players, threatening them, literally saying, "Hey, you cost me money, you owe me." Finding them at their homes, certainly harassing them incessantly on social media with some extraordinarily brutal harassment. Also, when we talk about the harassment and the threats college athletes face, that's a whole different story. And you can imagine how unpleasant that can get. So, this is really, again, a night and day difference from just 6 or 7 years ago when this was largely illegal. This is one of the biggest consequences that the leagues have had to own up to. And, you know, is this really the trade off that we're willing to make is something that they're still trying to convince not just the fans, but their own employees, that it's, that it's worth it in the long run.

JM: You know, we were, we were just talking about these ads for sports gaming apps and sports gaming websites, and how they paint a picture of wealth that is can be supposedly attainable from gambling. But is this the reality, like you've reported that some U.S. sportsbook operators actually restrict winning customers. How are they doing that?

DANNY FUNT: Right. So, to your point, it's overwhelmingly difficult to make money on betting on sports in the long term. Less than 1 in 100 sports bettors is going to be profitable over the long haul. And yet, because it seems like sports is something where you can outsmart the bookmaker, you know, you can't outsmart a slot machine, you can't outsmart a roulette wheel. But a lot of sports fans think they know better than everyone else, at least about their favourite sport or their favorite team. So, they think, "If I, if I put in enough effort, if I look at my phone at nine to find the best odds, I can outfox these oddsmakers and make money." It's, it's brutally difficult, even for people who try to do this professionally. It's an extremely tough way to make money. That being said, even if you are talented and disciplined and rigorous enough to make money in the long haul, almost immediately, these sportsbooks will identify that and refuse your business. Sometimes, they can't literally say, "We're not going to take your bet," so, but they can limit how much you can wager. So, I've seen bettors who aren't allowed to bet more than literally a penny on certain games because they've been identified as a winning bettor. Some states are looking at whether that's something they want to regulate, but for now, that's totally within the right of these sportsbooks and they're ruthless in the way that they cut down anyone who's not going to be long term profitable for them.

[Music playing]

JM: I know that one of the main arguments for, for legalization in the first place was just how much money it could bring in for governments via tax revenue. So, has that windfall materialized?

DANNY FUNT: Some places, yes. Some places, definitely no. On the whole, I think voters would be surprised to see how puny that money is compared to the big picture. So, this money, yeah, it's more politically convenient than raising income taxes or raising corporate tax rates, but it's pretty trivial in the big picture. If you look at a state like Colorado, their annual budget is $40 billion. And in the five or so years that sports betting has been legal, that's generated about $100 million for the state. So, let's say $20 million a year, $20 million for a state that has $40 billion in expenses annually, not a significant amount of money. And you also have to look at all of the consequences that come with it beyond, you know, if people are losing money betting on sports, are they spending as much with other businesses? Is their credit as healthy as it would otherwise be? Are their savings as responsible as it otherwise would be? Are there health consequences? I'm putting this hypothetically, but the answer is yes. There are health consequences that come with more expensive gambling. Sometimes, the state has to shoulder those burdens. So, I think we ought to look holistically and see. Sure, we've generated $7.5 billion in tax revenue, but on the whole, are we making as much as we're losing by unleashing sports betting to this extent?

JM: Yeah. I mean, let's, let's talk about those tradeoffs for a second. Like, you mentioned some of the social effects, it's been reported that online sports betting increases the odds of household bankruptcy by 25 to 30 per cent. It also increases debt delinquency. And several studies have linked sports betting to a number of social and public health issues, including intimate partner violence. How deep do these problems go?

DANNY FUNT: We're really in the early innings of grasping the scope of the consequence of making gambling this mainstream. But you, you only have to look to other countries that have had illegal online gambling for a lot longer than the U.S. and Canada to foreshadow where we might be heading. So, I think the U.K. is a pretty useful analogy. Brits lose about 5.5 billion pounds every year, gambling online. One study found that reduces economic activity annually by 1.3 billion pounds. The British government has found that gambling-related health harms cost the country at least 1 billion pounds annually, and likely much more than that. So again, yes, they're generating tax revenue just like the US and Canada are generating tax revenue, but they're beginning to see the bigger picture and how the weights and measures can be a lot more skewed than it seems on paper.

JM: So Danny, where does the industry go from here? Is there any prospect to your mind that adding guardrails is something we can expect to see in the near future?

DANNY FUNT: Yes, absolutely. And even still, you know, I don't think there are many states or places that are going to say, "We legalized it. It was a mistake. We're now going to outlaw it." But I also think that that is reductive and really misses the point that there's this huge middle ground of regulations and consumer protections within legalizing something, and banning it. Other countries that have had legal gambling for longer, whether that's in Europe or Australia or Latin America, are sort of re-regulating, and realizing we, we let this rip without enough protections. We need to rein this in. Whether that's banning advertising during games or during certain hours, when kids are more likely to be watching TV or listening to the radio, restricting certain deceptive advertising techniques like calling something risk-free when there is risk involved or calling something a bonus, even if you have to pay to get that bonus. Limiting the ability to deposit money through credit cards, which obviously allows people to run up debts and bet over their heads. Those sorts of reforms are being kicked around in Congress and in other legislative bodies. And I do think it's only a matter of time before some of that re-regulation is implemented in the U.S. and Canada.

[Music: Theme]

JM: Danny Funt, thanks so much for your eye-opening reporting on this. And thanks for coming on the show.

DANNY FUNT: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

JM: Front Burner was produced this week by Allie Jaynes, Kieran Oudshoorn, Lauren Donnelly, Cecelia Armstrong, Mackenzie Cameron, and Matt Amha. Music is by Joseph Shabason. Our senior producer is Elaine Chau. Our Executive Producer is Nick McCabe-Lokos. Jayme's back on Monday. I'm Jonathan Montpetit. Thanks so much for listening.

[Music: Theme]

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Sports betting: Golden age, or epidemic? - Transcript

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